Eventually, the rains stopped falling, and the waters receded. The air no longer burned the buds off of the trees, though there were few of them left anyway. Vines, brown but utterly alive, crawled up the concrete cliffs. Clouds meandered lazily across a sky that was almost blue again. Breezing winds blew ash through the burnt streets, the smell of black char finally beginning to fade. The sea became a river again; small fish could be seen darting from the shadows of the buildings above. Years had passed, millennia. The Earth breathed again. Eventually.